Gold, yuan, and the end of dollar rule “He who owns the gold makes the rules.” — Anonymous A reader on Sunday’s post mentioned The Wizard of Oz. That single word—Oz—sent me back to an essay I wrote over two years ago called The Land of Ounces. I went back…
A Three-Part Mini-Series — Part Three “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 18:3 In Part I, we met the Builder—not a single person but an archetype, a pattern of thinking that has shaped Western…
A Three-Part Mini-Series — Part Two “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.” — Genesis 11:4 Every tower begins with a promise. People surrender tangible wealth—time, money, labor, health—in exchange for the promise of something greater. This essay traces one of…
From 2018 to the present “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” — Winston Churchill Sometimes it pays to go back and read things I’ve written before. It sheds new light. In my post Things Are Not as They Appear, I traced the long…
A Three-Part Mini-Series — Part One “They know us better than we know ourselves. That should frighten you.” — Shoshana Zuboff, Author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Doesn’t it give you the creeps—that you’re being studied by the minute? Right now, somewhere yonder, a server is coalescing around your identity—your name,…
“The left hemisphere’s greatest triumph is the creation of a world that conforms to its own representation—and its greatest tragedy is that it has come to believe that this is the only world there is.” — Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary Three Diagnoses Last week gave us three…
“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” — Albert Einstein My oldest son graduated with honors in mechanical engineering in May 2025—and still doesn’t have a full-time job. He moved back home and spends his days sending out applications between rebuilding…
Parallels Between 1929 and Today’s Financial Fragility “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 In the final months of 1929, America looked unstoppable. Cities glowed with electric light. Streets swarmed with automobiles. Radios carried jazz, ball scores, and a steady stream of…
“It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” — Mark Twain When I was a little girl, I had big questions. Why do we have to sleep? Why do we die? Why do we need money to…
“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value: zero.” — Voltaire Last week, I read Scott Bessent’s paper, “The Fed’s ‘Gain of Function’ Monetary Policy,” which presents a striking critique of the Federal Reserve’s unconventional monetary strategies. Bessent argues that over the past decades—particularly following the 2008 financial crisis—the Fed has engaged…
“Outstanding, sophisticated, and mesmerizing…a spiritual intrigue similar to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.” —ForeWord Reviews